Why TNT Canceled "Men of a Certain Age," Its Only Emmy-Nominated Scripted Show

The weird thing about this: just one day earlier, Andre Braugher, who stars on the series with Ray Romano and Scott Bakula, scored the only major-category Emmy nomination for the network.

So why would TNT strike down its officially best-acclaimed show?

Because “Men of a Certain Age” doesn’t fit with the TNT brand in the least.

To be fair, as we’ve seen numerous times over the past year, a show that leans on generational relatability — whether it’s twentysomethings trying to figure out their lives or fortysomethings finding their first grey hairs — is a tough sell even on a network platform.

But it’s got even less of a chance on TNT, where the brand is incredibly disciplined.

Witness: What do “The Closer,” “Franklin and Bash,” “Rizzoli and Isles,” “Leverage” — honestly, we could list the whole grid here — have in common?

They’re procedurals. They’re character-driven. And to a one, the characters all follow this playbook:

They’re smartasses, they’re unorthodox, and they’re breakin’ all the rules — but they’re the best at what they do. And they get the job done.